About us

No Oil Palm Energy

Campaigning to stop a biofuel power station being built in Portland, Dorset.

400 people protest against a palm oil power plant in Portland

In January 2010 Weymouth and Portland Council passed plans for a power station at Portland Port which will generate electricity by burning palm oil from Indonesia. So why should this worry you?

Despite over 800 letters of protest, a petition signed by 400 Portland residents and representations from individuals, environmental groups and businesses against this scheme, our elected councillors were bullied into accepting plans for a biofuel power station that most people do not want and that will harm rather than benefit the community.

The plans are to burn 30,000 tonnes of palm oil in diesel engines to produce electricity. The fumes from this could affect the health of all the residents of Portland and beyond.

The palm oil they aim to use will be shipped from Indonesia, where forests are being chopped down to make way for palm plantations. The people who live in the forests are being forced from their land and animals like Orangutans, who live in the forest, are being displaced or killed.

This scheme is only going ahead because it is being subsidised by the governments Renewable Obligation Certificates. W4B are cashing in on this scheme and hoping to make some easy money at the expense of Portland residents and the people and animals of Indonesia.

There are currently problems with all biofuel schemes, with fuel sources competing with food and land used by some of the world’s poorest people, so we are asking that only truly green, clean and sustainable energy projects, like wind farms and tidal, are given government green energy subsidies.